From October to Brest-Litovsk Part 5

Thus ended this undertaking.

Our opponents still would not yield, however, and did not admit that the question of government power was settled. They continued to base their hopes on the front. Many leaders of the former Soviet parties--Chernoff, Tseretelli, Avksentiev, Gotz and others--went to the front, entered into negotiations with the old army committees, and, according to newspaper reports, tried even in the camp, to form a new ministry. All this came to naught. The old army committees had lost all their significance, and intensive work was going on at the front in connection with the conferences and councils called for the purpose of reorganizing all army organizations. In these re-elections the Soviet Government was everywhere victorious.

From Gatchinsk, our divisions proceeded along the railroad further in the direction of the Luga River and Pskov. On the way, they met a few more trainloads of shock-troops and Cossacks, which had been called out by Kerensky, or which individual generals had sent over. With one of these echelons there was even an armed encounter. But most of the soldiers that were sent from the front to Petrograd declared, as soon as they met with representatives of the Soviet forces, that they had been deceived and that they would not lift a finger against the government of soldiers and workingmen.

INTERNAL FRICTION

In the meantime, the struggle for Soviet control spread all over the country. In Moscow, especially, this struggle took on an extremely protracted and b.l.o.o.d.y character. Perhaps not the least important cause of this was the fact that the leaders of the revolt did not at once show the necessary determination in attacking. In civil war, more than in any other, victory can be insured only by a determined and persistent course. There must be no vacillation. To engage in parleys is dangerous; merely to mark time is suicidal. We are dealing here with the ma.s.ses, who have never held any power in their hands, who are therefore most wanting in political self-confidence. Any hesitation at revolutionary headquarters demoralizes them immediately. It is only when a revolutionary party steadily and resolutely makes for its goal, that it can help the toilers to overcome their century-old instincts of slavery and lead them on to victory. And only by these means of aggressive charges can victory be achieved with the smallest expenditure of energy and the least number of sacrifices.

But the great difficulty is to acquire such firm and positive tactics.

The people's want of confidence in their own power and their lack of political experience are naturally reflected in their leaders, who, in their turn, find themselves subjected, besides, to the tremendous pressure of bourgeois public opinion, from above.

The liberal bourgeoisie treated with contempt and indignation the mere idea of the possibility of a working cla.s.s government and gave free vent to their feelings on the subject, in the innumerable organs at their disposal. Close behind them trailed the intellectuals, who, with all their professions of radicalism and all the socialistic coating of their world-philosophy, are, in the depths of their hearts, completely steeped in slavish wors.h.i.+p of bourgeois strength and administrative ability. All these "Socialistic" intellectuals hastily joined the Right and considered the ever-increasing strength of the Soviet government as the clear beginning of the end. After the representatives of the "liberal"

professions came the petty officials, the administrative technicians--all those elements which materially and spiritually subsist on the crumbs that fall from the bourgeois table. The opposition of these elements was chiefly pa.s.sive in character, especially after the crus.h.i.+ng of the cadet insurrection; but, nevertheless, it might still seem formidable. We were being denied co-operation at every step. The government officials would either leave the Ministry or refuse to work while remaining in it. They would turn over neither the business of the department nor its money accounts. The telephone operators refused to connect us, while our messages were either held up or distorted in the telegraph offices. We could not get translators, stenographers or even copyists.

All this could not fail to create such an atmosphere as led various elements in the higher ranks of our own party to doubt whether, in the face of a boycott by bourgeois society, the toilers could manage to put the machinery of government in working order and continue in power.

Opinions were voiced as to the necessity of coalition. Coalition with whom? With the liberal bourgeoisie. But an attempt at coalition with them had driven the revolution into a terrible mora.s.s. The revolt of the 25th of October was an act of self-preservation on the part of the ma.s.ses after the period of impotence and treason of the leaders of coalition government. There remained for us only coalition in the ranks of so-called revolutionary democracy, that is, coalition of all the Soviet parties.

Such a coalition we did, in fact, propose from the very beginning--at the session of the Second All-Russian Council of Soviets, on the 25th of October. The Kerensky Government had been overthrown, and we suggested that the Council of Soviets take the government into its own hands. But the Right parties withdrew, slamming the door after them. And this was the best thing they could have done. They represented an insignificant section of the Council. They no longer had any following in the ma.s.ses, and those cla.s.ses which still supported them out of mere inertia, were coming over to our side more and more. Coalition with the Right Social-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki could not broaden the social basis of the Soviet government; and would, at the same time, introduce into the composition of this government elements which were completely disintegrated by political skepticism and idolatry of the liberal bourgeoisie. The whole strength of the new government lay in the radicalism of its program and the boldness of its actions. To tie itself up with the Chernofi and Tseretelli factions would mean to bind the new government hand and foot--to deprive it of freedom of action and thereby forfeit the confidence of the ma.s.ses in the shortest possible time.

Our nearest political neighbors to the Right were the so-called "Left Social Revolutionists." They were, in general, quite ready to support us, but endeavored, nevertheless, to form a coalition Socialist government. The management of the railroad union (the so-called vikzhal), the Central Committee of the Postal Telegraph employees, and the Union of Government Officials were all against us. And in the higher circles of our own party, voices were being raised as to the necessity of reaching an understanding with these organizations, one way or another. But on what basis? All the above-mentioned controlling organizations of the old period had outlived their usefulness. They bore approximately the same relation to the entire lower personnel as did the old army committees to the ma.s.ses of soldiers in the trenches. History has created a big gulf between the higher cla.s.ses and the lower.

Unprincipled combinations of these leaders of another day--leaders made antiquated by the revolution--were doomed to inevitable failure. It was necessary to depend wholly and confidently upon the ma.s.ses in order, jointly with them, to overcome the sabotage and the aristocratic pretensions of the upper cla.s.ses.

We left it to the Left Social-Revolutionists to continue the hopeless efforts for coalition. Our policy was, on the contrary, to line up the toiling lower cla.s.ses against the representatives of organizations which supported the Kerensky regime. This uncompromising policy caused considerable friction and even division in the upper circles of our party. In the Central Executive Committee, the Left Social Revolutionists protested against the severity of our measures and insisted upon the necessity for compromises. They met with support on the part of some of the Bolsheviki. Three People's Commissaries gave up their portfolios and left the government. A few other party leaders sided with them in principle. This created a very deep impression in intellectual and bourgeois circles. If the Bolsheviki could not be defeated by the cadets and Kra.s.snov's Cossacks, thought they, it is quite clear that the Soviet government must now perish as a result of internal dissension. However, the ma.s.ses never noticed this dissension at all. They unanimously supported the Soviet of People's Commissaries, not only against counter-revolutionary instigators and sabotagers but also against the coalitionists and the skeptics.

THE FATE OF THE CONSt.i.tUENT a.s.sEMBLY

When, after the Korniloff episode, the ruling Soviet parties tried to smooth over their laxness toward the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, they demanded a speedier convocation of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly.

Kerensky, whom the Soviets had just saved from the too light embraces of his ally, Korniloff, found himself compelled to make compromises. The call for the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly was issued for the end of November. By that time, however, circ.u.mstances had so shaped themselves that there was no guarantee whatever that the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly would really be convoked.

The greatest degree of disorganization was taking place at the front.

Desertions were increasing every day; the ma.s.ses of soldiers threatened to leave the trenches, whole regiments at a time, and move to the rear, devastating everything on their way. In the villages, a general seizure of lands and landholders' utensils was going on. Martial law had been declared in several provinces. The Germans continued to advance, captured Riga, and threatened Petrograd. The right wing of the bourgeoisie was openly rejoicing over the danger that threatened the revolutionary capital. The government offices at Petrograd were being evacuated, and Kerensky's government was preparing to move to Moscow.

All this made the actual convocation of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly not only doubtful, but hardly even probable. From this point of view, the October revolution seems to have been the deliverance of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, as it has been the savior of the Revolution generally. When we were declaring that the road to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly was not by way of Tseretelli's Preliminary Parliament, but by way of the seizure of the reigns of government by the Soviets, we were quite sincere.

But the interminable delay in convoking the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly was not without effect upon this inst.i.tution itself. Heralded in the first days of the revolution, it came into being only after eight or nine months of bitter cla.s.s and party struggle. It came too late to play a creative role. Its internal inadequacy had been predetermined by a single fact--a fact which might seem unimportant at first, but which subsequently took on tremendous importance for the fate of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly.

Numerically, the princ.i.p.al revolutionary party in the first epoch was the party of Social-Revolutionists. I have already referred to its formlessness and variegated composition. The revolution led inevitably to the dismemberment of such of its members as had joined it under the banner of populism. The left wing, which had a following among part of the workers and the vast ma.s.ses of poor peasants, was becoming more and more alienated from the rest. This wing found itself in uncompromising opposition to the party and middle bourgeois branches of Social Revolutionists. But the inertness of party organization and party tradition held back the inevitable process of cleavage. The proportional system of elections still holds full sway, as every one knows, in party lists. Since these lists were made up two or three months before the October revolution and were not subject to change, the Left and the Right Social Revolutionists still figured in these lists as one and the same party. Thus, by the time of the October revolution--that is, the period when the Right Social Revolutionists were arresting the Left and then the Left were combining with the Bolsheviki for the overthrow of Kerensky's ministry, the old lists remained in full force; and in the elections for the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly the peasants were compelled to vote for lists of names at the head of which stood Kerensky, followed by those of Left Social Revolutionists who partic.i.p.ated in the plot for his overthrow.

If the months preceding the October revolution were months of continuous gain in popular support for the Left--of a general increase in Bolshevik following among workers, soldiers and peasants--then this process was reflected within the party of Social Revolutionists in an increase of the left wing at the expense of the right. Nevertheless, on the party lists of the Social Revolutionists there was a predominance of three to one of old leaders of the right wing--of men who had lost all their revolutionary reputation in the days of coalition with the liberal bourgeoisie.

To this should be added also the fact that the elections themselves were held during the first weeks after the October revolution. The news of the change traveled rather slowly from the capital to the provinces, from the cities to the villages. The peasantry in many places had but a very vague idea of what was taking place in Petrograd and Moscow. They voted for "Land and Liberty," for their representatives in the land committees, who in most cases gathered under the banner of populism: but thereby they were voting for Kerensky and Avksentiev, who were dissolving the land committees, and arresting their members. As a result of this, there came about the strange political paradox that one of the two parties which dissolved the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly--the Left Social-Revolutionists--had won its representation by being on the same list of names with the party which gave a majority to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. This matter-of-fact phase of the question should give a very clear idea of the extent to which the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly lagged behind the course of political events and party groupings.

We must consider the question of principles.

THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY AND PROLETARIAN DICTATORs.h.i.+P

As Marxists, we have never been idol-wors.h.i.+ppers of formal democracy. In a society of cla.s.ses, democratic inst.i.tutions not only do not eliminate cla.s.s struggle, but also give to cla.s.s interests an utterly imperfect expression. The propertied cla.s.ses always have at their disposal tens and hundreds of means for falsifying, subverting and violating the will of the toilers. And democratic inst.i.tutions become a still less perfect medium for the expression of the cla.s.s struggle under revolutionary circ.u.mstances. Marx called revolutions "the locomotives of history."

Owing to the open and direct struggle for power, the working people acquire much political experience in a short time and pa.s.s rapidly from one stage to the next in their development. The ponderous machinery of democratic inst.i.tutions lags behind this evolution all the more, the bigger the country and the less perfect its technical apparatus.

The majority in the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly proved to be Social Revolutionists, and, according to parliamentary rules of procedure, the control of the government belonged to them. But the party of Right Social Revolutionists had a chance to acquire control during the entire pre-October period of the revolution. Yet, they avoided the responsibilities of government, leaving the lion's share of it to the liberal bourgeoisie. By this very course the Right Social Revolutionists lost the last vestiges of their influence with the revolutionary elements by the time the numerical composition of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly formally obliged them to form a government. The working cla.s.s, as well as the Red Guards, were very hostile to the party of Right Social Revolutionists. The vast majority of soldiers supported the Bolsheviki. The revolutionary element in the provinces divided their sympathies between the Left Social Revolutionists and the Bolsheviki.

The sailors, who had played such an important role in revolutionary events, were almost unanimously on our side. The Right Social Revolutionists, moreover, had to leave the Soviets, which in October--that is, before the convocation of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly--had taken the government into their own hands. On whom, then, could a ministry formed by the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly's majority depend for support? It would be backed by the upper cla.s.ses in the provinces, the intellectuals, the government officials, and temporarily by the bourgeoisie on the Right. But such a government would lack all the material means of administration. At such a political center as Petrograd, it would encounter irresistible opposition from the very start. If under these circ.u.mstances the Soviets, submitting to the formal logic of democratic conventions, had turned the government over to the party of Kerensky and Chernov, such a government, compromised and debilitated as it was, would only introduce temporary confusion into the political life of the country, and would be overthrown by a new uprising in a few weeks. The Soviets decided to reduce this belated historical experiment to its lowest terms, and dissolved the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly the very first day it met.

For this, our party has been most severely censured. The dispersal of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly has also created a decidedly unfavorable impression among the leading circles of the European Socialist parties.

Kautsky has explained, in a series of articles written with his characteristic pedantry, the interrelation existing between the Social-Revolutionary problems of the proletariat and the regime of political democracy. He tries to prove that for the working cla.s.s it is always expedient, in the long run, to preserve the essential elements of the democratic order. This is, of course, true as a general rule. But Kautsky has reduced this historical truth to professorial ba.n.a.lity. If, in the final a.n.a.lysis, it is to the advantage of the proletariat to introduce its cla.s.s struggle and even its dictators.h.i.+p, through the channels of democratic inst.i.tutions, it does not at all follow that history always affords it the opportunity for attaining this happy consummation. There is nothing in the Marxian theory to warrant the deduction that history always creates such conditions as are most "favorable" to the proletariat.

It is difficult to tell now how the course of the Revolution would have run if the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly had been convoked in its second or third month. It is quite probable that the then dominant Social Revolutionary and Menshevik parties would have compromised themselves, together with the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, in the eyes of not only the more active elements supporting the Soviets, but also of the more backward democratic ma.s.ses, who might have been attached, through their expectations not to the side of the Soviets, but to that of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. Under such circ.u.mstances the dissolution of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly might have led to new elections, in which the party of the Left could have secured a majority. But the course of events has been different. The elections for the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly occurred in the ninth month of the Revolution. By that time the cla.s.s struggle had a.s.sumed such intensity that it broke the formal frames of democracy by sheer internal force.

The proletariat drew the army and the peasantry after it. These cla.s.ses were in a state of direct and bitter war with the Right Social Revolutionists. This party, owing to the clumsy electoral democratic machinery, received a majority in the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, reflecting the pre-October epoch of the revolution. The result was a contradiction which was absolutely irreducible within the limits of formal democracy.

And only political pedants who do not take into account the revolutionary logic of cla.s.s relations, can, in the face of the post-October situation, deliver futile lectures to the proletariat on the benefits and advantages of democracy for the cause of the cla.s.s struggle.

The question was put by history far more concretely and sharply. The Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, owing to the character of its majority, was bound to turn over the government to the Chernov, Kerensky and Tseretelli group. Could this group have guided the destinies of the Revolution?

Could it have found support in that cla.s.s which const.i.tutes the backbone of the Revolution? No. The real kernel of the cla.s.s revolution has come into irreconcilable conflict with its democratic sh.e.l.l. By this situation the fate of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly had been sealed. Its dissolution became the only possible surgical remedy for the contradiction, which had been created, not by us, but by all the preceding course of events.

PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

At the historic night session of the Second All-Russian Congress of the Soviets the decree on peace was adopted. (The full text is printed in the Appendix.) At that moment the Soviet government was only becoming established in the important centers of the country and there was very little confidence abroad in its power. The Soviet adopted the decree unanimously. But this seemed to many no more than a political demonstration. Those who were for a compromise preached at every opportunity that our resolution would bring no results; for, on the one hand, the German imperialists would not recognize and would not deal with us; on the other hand, our Allies would declare war upon us as soon as we should start negotiating a separate peace. Under the shadow of these predictions we took our first steps to secure a general democratic peace. The decree was adopted on the 26th of October, when Kerensky and Kra.s.snov were at the gates of Petrograd. On the 7th of November, we addressed by wireless an invitation to our Allies and enemies to conclude a general peace. In reply the Allied Governments addressed to General Dukhonin, then commander-in-chief, through their military attaches, a communication stating that further steps to separate peace negotiations would lead to the gravest consequences. To this protest we answered the 11th of November by appealing to all the workers, soldiers and peasants. In this appeal we declared that under no circ.u.mstances would we permit our army to shed its blood under the club of the foreign bourgeoisie. We swept aside the threat of the Western imperialists and took upon ourselves the responsibility for our peace policy before the international working cla.s.s. First of all, we published, in accordance with our promises, made as a matter of principle, the secret treaties and declared that we would relinquish everything in these treaties that was against the interests of the ma.s.ses of the people in all countries.

The capitalist governments made an attempt to make use of our disclosures against one another, but the ma.s.ses of the people understood and recognized us. Not a single social patriotic publication, as far as we know, dared to protest against having all the methods of diplomacy radically changed by a government of peasants and workers; they dared not protest against us for denouncing the dishonest cunning, chicanery and cheating of the old diplomacy. We made it the task of our diplomacy to enlighten the ma.s.ses of the peoples, to open their eyes to the real meaning of the policy of their governments, in order to weld them together in a common struggle and a common hatred against the bourgeois capitalist order. The German bourgeois press accused us of "dragging on"

the peace negotiations; but all nations anxiously followed the discussions at Brest-Litovsk, and in this way we rendered, during the two months and a half of peace negotiations, a service to the cause of peace which was recognized even by the more honest of our enemies. The question of peace was first put before the world in a shape which made it impossible to side-track it any longer by machinations behind the scenes. On the 22nd of November a truce was signed to discontinue military activities on the entire front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Once more we requested our Allies to join us and to conduct together with us the peace negotiations. There was no reply, though this time the Allies did not again attempt to frighten us by threats. The peace negotiations were started December 9th, a month and a half after the peace decree was adopted. The accusations of the purchased press and of the social-traitor press that we had made no attempt to agree with our Allies on a common policy was therefore entirely false. For a month and a half we kept our Allies informed about every step we made and always called upon them to become a party to the peace negotiations. Our conscience is clear before the peoples of France, Italy and Great Britain.... We did all in our power to get all the belligerents to join the peace negotiations. If we were compelled to start separate peace negotiations, it was not because of any fault of ours, but because of the Western imperialists, as well as those of the Russian parties, which continued predicting the approaching destruction of the workmen's and peasants' government of Russia and who persuaded the Allies not to pay serious attention to our peace initiative. But be that as it may, on the 9th of December the peace conversations were started. Our delegation made a statement of principles which set forth the basis of a general democratic peace in the exact expressions of the decree of the 26th of October (8th of November). The other side demanded that the session be broken off, and the reopening of the sessions was later, at the suggestion of Kuehlmann, repeatedly delayed. It was clear that the delegation of the Teuton Allies experienced no small difficulty in the formulation of its reply to our delegation. On the 25th of December this reply was given. The diplomats of the Teuton Allies expressed agreement with our democratic formula of peace without annexations and indemnities, on the basis of self-determination of peoples. We saw clearly that this was but pretense; but we had not expected even that they would try to pretend; because, as the French writer has said, hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. The fact that the German imperialists found it necessary to make this tribute to the principles of democracy, was, in our eyes, evidence that the situation of affairs within Germany was serious enough.... But if we, generally speaking, had no illusions concerning the love for democracy of Messrs.

Kuehlmann and Czernin--we know well enough the nature of the German and Austro-Hungarian dominating cla.s.ses--it must nevertheless be admitted that we had not the slightest idea of the chasm which separated the real intentions of German imperialism from those principles which were put forth on the 25th of December by Mr. von Kuehlmann as a parody on the Russian revolution--a chasm which was revealed so strikingly a few days later. Such audacity we had never expected.

Kuehlmann's reply made a tremendous impression upon the working ma.s.ses of Russia. It was interpreted as a result of the fear felt by the dominant cla.s.ses of the Central Empires because of the discontent and the growing impatience of the working ma.s.ses of Germany. On the 28th of December there took place in Petrograd a joint demonstration of workmen and soldiers for a democratic peace. The next morning our delegation came back from Brest-Litovsk and brought those brigand demands which Mr.

von Kuehlmann made to us in the name of the Central Empires as an interpretation of his "democratic" formulae.

At the first glance it may seem incomprehensible why the German diplomacy should have presented its democratic formulae if it intended within two or three days to disclose its wolfish appet.i.te. What was it that the German diplomacy expected to bring about? At least, the theoretic discussions which developed around the democratic formulae, owing largely to the initiative of Kuehlmann himself, were not without their danger. That the diplomacy of the Central Empires could not reap many laurels in that way must have been clear beforehand to that diplomacy itself. But the secret of the conduct of the diplomacy of Kuehlmann consisted in that that gentleman was sincerely convinced of our readiness to play a four-handed game with him. His way of reasoning was approximately as follows: Russia needs peace. The Bolsheviki got the power because of their struggle for peace. The Bolsheviki desire to remain in power and this is possible for them only on condition that peace is concluded. It is true that they bound themselves to a definite democratic program of peace, but why do diplomats exist if not for the purpose of making black look white? We Germans will make it easier for the Bolsheviki by covering our plunders by democratic formulas. The Bolshevist diplomacy will have plenty of reason not to dig for the political essence of the matter, or, rather, not to expose to the entire world the contents of the enticing formulae.... In other words, Kuehlmann relied upon a silent agreement with us. He would return to us our fine formulas and we should give him a chance to get provinces and peoples for Germany without a protest. In the eyes of the German workers, the annexations by force would thus receive the sanction of the Russian Revolution. When during the discussions, we showed that with us, it was not a matter of empty words or of camouflaging a conspiracy concluded behind the scenes, but a matter of democratic principles for the international life of the community of nations, Kuehlmann took it as a willful and malicious breaking of the silent agreement. He would not by any means recede from the position taken in the formulas of the 25th of December. Relying upon his cunning, bureaucratic and judicial logic, he tried in the face of the entire world to show that white is in no way different from black, and it was our own perverseness which made us insist that there was such a difference. Count Czernin, the representative of Austria-Hungary, played a part in those negotiations which no one would consider inspiring or satisfactory.

He was an awkward second and upon instructions from Kuehlmann took it upon himself in all critical moments to utter the most extreme and cynical declarations. General Hoffmann brought a refres.h.i.+ng note into the negotiations. Showing no great sympathy for the diplomatic constructions of Kuehlmann, the General several times put his soldierly boot upon the table, around which a complicated judicial debate was developing. We, on our part, did not doubt for a single minute that just this boot of General Hoffmann was the only element of serious reality in these negotiations. The important trump in the hands of Mr. Kuehlmann was the partic.i.p.ation in the negotiations of a delegation of the Kiev Rada. For the Ukrainian middle cla.s.ses, who had seized the power, the most important factor seemed to be the "recognition" of their government by the capitalist governments of Europe. At first the Rada placed itself at the disposal of the Allied imperialists, received from them some pocket money, and immediately thereupon sent their representatives to Brest-Litovsk in order to make a bargain behind the back of the Russian people with the government of Austria-Hungary for the recognition of the legitimate birth of their government. They had hardly taken this first step on the road to "international" existence, when the Kiev diplomacy revealed the same narrow-mindedness and the same moral standards which were always so characteristic of the petty politicians of the Balkan Peninsula. Messrs. Kuehlmann and Czernin certainly had no illusions concerning the solidity of the new partic.i.p.ant in the negotiations. But they thought, and correctly so, that the partic.i.p.ation of the Kiev delegation complicated the game not without advantage for themselves.

At its first appearance at Brest-Litovsk, the Kiev delegation characterized Ukraine as a component part of the Russian Federated Republic that was in progress of formation. This apparently embarra.s.sed the diplomats of the Central Empires, who considered it their main task to convert the Russian Republic into a new Balkan Peninsula. At their second appearance the delegates of the Rada declared, under dictation from the Austro-Hungarian diplomacy, that Ukraine refused to join the Russian Federation and was becoming an entirely independent republic. In order to give the reader an opportunity to get a better idea of the situation which was thus created for the Soviet power in the last moment of the peace negotiations, I think it best to reproduce here in its basic parts the address made by the author of these lines in his capacity as the People's Commissar on Foreign Affairs at the session of the Central Executive Committee on the 14th of February, 1918.

ADDRESS OF THE PEOPLES COMMISSAR ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Comrades: Upon Soviet Russia has fallen the task not only to construct the new but also to recapitulate the old to a certain degree, or, rather, to a very large degree--to pay all bills, first of all the bills of the war, which has lasted three and a half years. The war put the economic power of the belligerent countries to a severe test. The fate of Russia, a poor, backward country, in a protracted war was predetermined. In the terrible collision of the military machines the determining factor, after all is said and done, is the ability of the country to adapt its industries to the military needs, to rebuild it on the shortest notice and to produce in continuously increasing quant.i.ties the weapons of destruction which are used up at such an enormous rate during this ma.s.sacre of peoples. Almost every country, including the most backward, could and did have powerful weapons of destruction at the beginning of the war; that is, it obtained them from foreign countries.

That is what all the backward countries did, and so did Russia. But the war speedily wears out its dead capital, demanding that it be continuously replenished. The military power of every single country drawn into the whirlpool of the world ma.s.sacre was, as a matter of fact, measured by its ability to produce independently and during the war itself, its cannons and sh.e.l.ls and the other weapons of destruction.

If the war had decided the problem of the balance of power in a very short time, Russia might conceivably have turned out to be on that side of the trenches which victory favored. But the war dragged along for a long time, and it was not an accident that it did so. The fact alone that the international politics were for the last fifty years reduced to the construction of the so-called European "balance of power," that is, to a state in which the hostile powers approximately balance one another, this fact alone was bound--when the power and wealth of the present bourgeois nations is considered--to make it a war of an extremely protracted character. That meant first of all the exhaustion of the weaker and economically less developed countries.

The most powerful country in a military sense proved to be Germany, because of the strength of the industries and because of their modern and rational construction as against the archaic construction of the German State. France, with its undeveloped state of capitalism, proved to be far behind Germany, and even such a powerful colonial power as Great Britain, owing to the conservative and routine character of the English industries, proved to be weaker than Germany. When history put before the Russian Revolution the question of the peace negotiations, we had no doubt that in these negotiations, and so long as the decisive power of the revolutionary proletariat of the world had not interfered, we should be compelled to stand the bill of three and a half years of war. There was no doubt in our minds that in the person of the German imperialism we were dealing with an opponent who was saturated with the consciousness of his immense power, which was strikingly revealed during the present war.

All the arguments made by bourgeois cliques that we might have been incomparably stronger if we had conducted these negotiations together with our allies are absolutely without foundation. In order that we might at an indefinite future date conduct negotiations together with our Allies, we should first of all have had to continue the war together with them. And if our country was weakened and exhausted, the continuation of the war, a failure to bring it to a conclusion, would have still further weakened and exhausted it. We should have had to settle the war under conditions still more unfavorable to us. In the case even that the combination of which Russia, owing to international intrigues of Czarism and the bourgeoisie, had become a part--the combination headed by Great Britain--in the case even that this combination had come out of the war completely victorious--let us for a moment admit the possibility of such a not very probable issue--even in that case, comrades, it does not mean that our country would also have come out victorious. For during further continuation of this protracted war, Russia would have become even more exhausted and plundered than now. The masters of that combination, who would concentrate in their hands the fruits of the victory, that is, Great Britain and America, would have displayed toward our country the same methods which were displayed by Germany during the peace negotiations. It would be absurd and childish to appraise the politics of the imperialistic countries from the point of view of any considerations other than those considerations of naked interests and material power. Consequently, if we, as a nation are at present weakened before the imperialism of the world, we are weakened, not because of extricating ourselves from the fiery ring of the war, having already previously extricated ourselves from the shackles of international military obligations: no! we are weakened by that very policy of the Czarists and the bourgeois cla.s.ses, which we, as a revolutionary party, have always fought against before this war and during this war.